Sheep to Be Slaughtered

Introduction[ ]

Overview[ ]

The purpose was the psalmist's probable intent or reason for writing this psalm. The Content is a concise summary of the whole psalm's content. The Message is the main idea the psalmist probably wanted the audience to remember upon or after hearing the psalm.

Purpose: To wrestle with an experience of rejection, in spite of covenant faithfulness.

Content: God delivered Israel's favored ancestors. Israel, who has been faithful to the covenant, should also experience that favor. However, the reality is that God has been causing defeat and humiliation. Israel wrestles with this reality, and pleads for deliverance according to God's faithfulness.

Message: When confused and disappointed, God’s people can still appeal to his covenant and character.

Background Ideas

Cultural, historical, and contextual information that is important to know to understand this psalm

God establishes his covenant with Israel's ancestors. The Mosaic Covenant includes an extensive list of blessings for covenant faithfulness and curses for covenant unfaithfulness (Lev 26:3–45; Deut 28).
Defeat and humiliation are characteristic of covenant curse, while victory and prosperity are characteristic of covenant blessing.
ANE kings could pay foreign powers (with silver and gold) to come to their military aid (2 Kgs 16:7–9; 2 Chr 16:1–6).
Sacrifices were often offered to God prior to battle, in order to seek his military favor (1 Sam 7:8–11; 13:8–12).

Background Situation

A brief explanation of the "story behind" the psalm--what was going on in the psalmist's life, and/or Israel's history, that prompted the psalmist to pen this psalm? The colors in the boxes correspond to the participants in the psalm (see Participant Analysis).

Sections

These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation)); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.

Videos[ ]

The Overview video is a brief, concise explanation of the psalm, pulling all the most important information specific to this psalm from each of our analytical layers. The video begins with a high-level, birds-eye view of the content of the psalm, then explores and explains the psalm verse by verse. Relevant contextual information is also included. No Hebrew knowledge required--this video serves as an entry point for all users to all our other information about the psalm.

Translation Aids[ ]

Recommended steps for translating the psalms[ ]

To translate poetry accurately and beautifully, a knowledge of both the source language's poetry and the target language's poetry is needed. So, here are the steps we recommend to follow when setting out to translate the psalms:

GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE'S POETRY/ARTS. Research and analyze many examples from numerous genres of poetry, storytelling, and music in the target language and culture, and document findings. See our for help.
GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOURCE LANGUAGE'S (HEBREW) MEANING AND POETRY. The aim of all our materials is to provide exactly this for the translator, poet/musician/artist, and consultant: an understanding of what the psalm means, as well as its poetics.
TRANSLATE THE PSALM IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL ART/POETRY GENRE.

Translation and Performance Notes

TPNs are an at-a-glance reference for anyone involved with translating or checking a translation of the psalm. Specific words, phrases, and images that could be difficult to understand or to translate are highlighted, and then briefly discussed. Each note is intended to help the reader understand the meaning of the Hebrew word or phrase in its context, as well as provide a few translation options or suggestions, often pulling from existing translations. Where pertinent, our preferred translation option is given. NOTE: These notes are intended to supplement a robust internalization of the psalm, not replace it. Translation Challenges for Psalm 44 not available yet.

Close-but-Clear Translation

The Close-but-clear translation (CBC) exists to provide a window into the Hebrew text according to how we understand its syntax and word-to-phrase-level semantics. It is not intended to be used as a stand-alone translation or base text, but as a supplement to Layer-by-Layer materials to help users make full use of these resources.

1. For the director. By the Korahites. A maskil.

2. God, we have heard [it] with our ears—

Our ancestors have recounted to us

the deeds which you did in their times—

in times long ago

3. You, by your strength, dispossessed nations, and then you planted them.

You would afflict the people groups, and then you would set them free.

4. For they did not take possession of the land by means of their sword;

nor did their power give victory for them.

But rather your right hand, and your power, and the light of your countenance [gave the victory];

for you were pleased with them.

5. You are my king, my God,

commanding victory for Jacob!

6. With you, we can gore our adversaries;

under your authority, we can tread down our enemies.

7. Indeed, I cannot trust in my bow,

nor can my sword give me victory.

8. But rather you delivered us from our adversaries;

and you put our enemies to shame.

9. We have been boasting in God all day long,

and we will keep declaring your name forever. Selah.

10. Even so, you have rejected [us]—that is, you have put us to shame.

And you do not go forth with our armies.

11. You make us retreat before the adversary,

and our enemies have plundered for themselves.

12. You give us up as sheep for consumption,

and you have scattered us among the nations.

13. You sell your people without compensation,

and you have not made a profit by them.

14. You turn us into an object of scorn to our neighbors—

An object of scornful derision to those who surround us.

15. You turn us into a parable among the nations—

An object of pity among the people groups.

16. All day long, my shame is before me,

and my shamefacedness has covered me,

17. because of the voice of the reviling taunter,

because of the vengeful enemy.

18. All this has come upon us, even though we have not neglected you;

Nor have we broken faith with your covenant.

19. Our heart has not backslid—

that is, our steps have not deviated from your path.

20. Yet you have crushed us in the place of jackals,

and thus you have covered us with deepest shadow.

21. If we have neglected our God's name—

that is, if we had spread our palms in prayer to another god—

22. could not God investigate this,

since he knows the heart's secrets?

23. Yet we have been killed because of you all day long.

We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

24. Awake! Why do you sleep, Lord?

Wake up! Do not keep rejecting [us] forever!

25. Why are you hiding your countenance?

Why are you neglecting our affliction and oppression?

26. For our soul has sunk down into the dust;

our belly clings to the earth.

27. Arise to our aid,

and redeem us because of your faithfulness!

Explore the Layers

Exegetical Issues[ ]

The Hebrew of the psalms can be difficult to understand at times. In this section, you can explore (in either video or text format) what we've deemed to be the three most important difficulties in the Hebrew, and follow our reasoning as we do a deep dive in scholarly work and explain our conclusions.

The Line Division of Ps. 44:2–3

The Speaker of Ps. 44:5, 7, and 16

The Text and Meaning of Ps. 44:5

Grammar[ ]

A full, detailed diagram showing the grammatical function of each word/morpheme in the Hebrew text, along with accompanying notes.

Explore the Grammar layer

Semantics[ ]

Lexical and Phrase-level Semantics[ ]

Lexical semantics is the study of word meanings. It examines semantic range (=possible meanings of a word), the relationship between words (e.g. synonymy, hyponymy), as well as the relationship between words and larger concepts (conceptual domains). One component of our approach involves not only the study of the Hebrew word meaning, but also of our own assumptions about word meaning in modern languages. Because the researcher necessarily starts with their own cultural assumptions (in our case, those of Western-trained scholars), this part of the analysis should ideally be done afresh for every culture. Phrase-level semantics analyses the meaning of syntactic units which are larger than the level of the word and smaller than the level of the clause. Specifically, this layer analyses the meaning of prepositional phrases , construct phrases (a special type of construction in Hebrew), phrases formed by a coordinating waw conjunction, and noun phrases which consist of a noun plus a determiner (such as "the") or a quantifier (such as "all").

Explore Lexical and Phrasal Semantics

Verbal Semantics[ ]

Verbal Semantics focuses on the relationship between verbs, time and modality, and gives details about each verb in the psalm. This is important for interpretation and translation, and how one analyses a verb can have a significant effect on how it is rendered.

Explore Verbal Semantics

Story Behind the Psalm (Unit-level Semantics)

The Story Behind triangle tells the "story" (reading from left to right, beginning at the bottom left corner) of what might have prompted the psalmist to write this psalm. The events and ideas on the triangle are taken from the Propositions and Assumptions table below. Propositional content is the part of the meaning of a clause or sentence that is constant, despite changes in such things as voice, illocutionary force, tense/aspect/mode, person/gender/number, etc. It refers to “the kind of situation or event described by the underlying proposition.” Once we have identified the propositional content, we ask, “what would the world have to be like for this [proposition] to be true?” That is, what does this proposition presuppose about the world? What does it entail? What might be implied? In what kind of situation does this make sense? In other words, what assumptions are bound up with this proposition? We distinguish three kinds of assumptions:

Common-ground assumptions
Local-ground assumptions
Playground assumptions

See the Legend accompanying the chart for more details on the types of assumptions.

Understanding the assumptions involved will help translators understand the implicit information present in the text, so that they can decide which of these to make explicit in the translation or biblical helps for their audience to understand the text's larger meaning.

Explore the Story Behind the Psalm

Discourse[ ]

Participant Analysis

This layer examines each participant in the psalm, whether they have speaking roles in the psalm, or are just referenced in the poem. Often, the relationships and interactions among participants sheds much light on the understanding and translation of a psalm. The summary visuals give a view of the participants in the psalm as a whole, while the tables list the participant information for each clause.